Thieves Of Mercy

THIRTY-THREE

The battle continued down the river out of sight of Memphis, and it is reported that only two of our boats, the Bragg and Van Dorn , escaped. It is impossible now to report casualties, as we were hurried in our retirement from Memphis, and none but those from the Lovell escaped on the Tennessee side of the river. So soon as more information can be collected, I will report.

BRIGADIER GENERAL M. JEFF THOMPSON TO GENERAL G.T.BEAUREGARD

Wendy Atkins was riding the same emotional seesaw as the thousands of others who crowded the levee and the heights of Memphis and watched the fate of their city being decided on the river in front of them.

It was pure elation to see the River Defense Fleet steam out to the fight, nimble warriors against the overbearing Yankees gunboats, which were hanging on their anchors with bows upstream to facilitate a quick retreat. She had heard enough stories about Plum Point Bend to understand that this was not entirely folly, the wooden boats going up against the ironclads.

The gunnery had started slowly, but soon it was murderous, and the town was in the line of fire. Shells screamed past overhead, and Wendy recalled with horror the time she had clandestinely sailed into battle with Samuel Bowater, and the Union shelling of Sewell’s Point. It was frightening. The ironclads seemed omnipotent, and she felt her faith in the Confederate boats’ ability to stand up to them wavering.

But still the Confederates advanced, boldly advanced right into the storm of shot.

“There, that one.” Shirley, standing beside her on the levee, pointed with a straight arm. “That’s the General Joseph Page. Good likelihood Bowater’s on her.”

Wendy stared at the side-wheeler, hardly distinguishable from the other boats in the River Defense Fleet. She wondered about the captain, this fellow with whom Samuel had become such close friends. She was curious to meet him. She knew already that he must be a fellow of good taste, learned, well read, and erudite.

Four ships of the River Defense Fleet were pressing the attack, but the General Page was not one, for which Wendy was grateful. The ironclads fired and the Confederates fired back and no one moved. For some minutes, nothing seemed to happen. Stalemate. And then from out of the thunder and the smoke surrounding the ironclads came a single Yankee ship, unarmored, and everything began to happen at once.

Like metal filings to a lodestone, the Confederate boats were drawn to the Yankee ship. Then another Yankee came out of the smoke. The Yankees and the Rebels circled, slammed into one another, pandemonium on the water. Wendy saw one of the Confederate ships sink, slip away under the water as if the hand of God had pushed it under.

She felt the mood change on the levee, and a massive groan went up as the Confederate ship disappeared, a sense of despair that touched them all as if they were of one mind. She moved her attention to the General Page, still not in the fight. She began to pray.

Boats were crawling for the shore, including the first Yankee ram, but the second was unhurt, and making for the General Page.

There was another boat between the Yankee and the Page, which Shirley said was the General Bragg, but the Yankee brushed her aside and struck Bowater’s ship bow-on.

A great shout went up from the levee, and everyone held their breath because there was no telling who got the worst of it. And then both boats backed away, began circling.

“Look there!” Shirley pointed upriver.

“What?”

“The gunboats are getting underway! See, they’re turning to come bow-down. Damn, that’ll be an end to it.”

“An end?”

“The River Defense Fleet can’t stand up to them. City can’t stand up to them. It’s over.”

“Over?” Wendy knew she sounded idiotic, but she did not know what else to say. She was stunned.

She looked back at the General Page, which was well south of them now, carried downstream on the current. To her amazement, the Page was stopped dead and the Yankee ram was rushing down on her, as if the Confederates were giving up, allowing themselves to be killed. The Yankee ram slammed into the Page with an audible crash, but the people on the levee had no reaction. It was over. They all knew it. They were too numb to react.

Except Wendy Atkins. “Oh, those bastards!”

“She’s done for,” Shirley said, mournfully. “I’m sorry, Miss Atkins.”

They watched as the Yankee extracted itself from the Page and steamed away downstream, chasing after the remnants of the River Defense Fleet. They watched and waited and Wendy felt her terror mount. And then, from the far side of the sinking ship, a boat appeared, moving like a white water bug, pulling for the Tennessee shore.

“Look!” Wendy practically shouted, pointing at the boat, but

Shirley’s mood did not revive. “It’s too late. They’ll just rot in some Yankee prison.” “What? Why?” “The Yankees will have Memphis in a hour or so. They’ll

round these fellas up. They got the city, they got the river. Nowhere to run.” From despair to elation to anger. Live through that, only to be made prisoner? I hardly think so.

Wilbur Rankin, leading Memphis merchant, was not going to be a prisoner either. He was not going to be arrested, not going to be hung, not going to be killed by his fellow citizens in the panic. And most of all, he was not going to be poor.

Rankin had not spent the past twenty-three years cheating, embezzling, gouging, and extorting for nothing. He had not hoarded goods such as cloth, food, and shoes in his warehouse until prices became astronomical just to lose it all now, simply because the damned Yankees were here.

No, sir.

He loaded the wagon with whatever it would hold, whatever in his warehouse he could personally lift and toss in the back. Happily, the really valuable things tended to be the lightest-silk, for instance-and though the small hoard of gold coin was not light by any means, he had divided it into a few small boxes, which were manageable.

While the rest of the idiotic, sentimental citizens of Memphis watched their fate being decided from the levee and the hills, Wilbur Rankin was at his riverside warehouse preparing his exit. The war had been very good for him, so far. Blockades, shortages, wartime demand, he had made a fortune, but it was played out, at least as far as Memphis was concerned.

The Confederacy was done. Time to go north. He would return if Southern fortunes turned around again, but until then, he was a loyal Union man. Always had been.

He tossed the last box of tea in the back and climbed up onto the seat. It was a big wagon, made for hauling freight, and pulled by a team of four. He had managed to pile quite a lot back there.

He flicked the reins, got the horses moving. In the gaps between the waterfront buildings he could catch glimpses of the river, the thick blanket of smoke, the boats whirling about, limping for the shore in a sinking condition, paddle wheels shattered. He shook his head. Stupid, stupid, stupid… He did not understand why people even bothered.

He heard a voice calling, but he had expected that. Every fool who had not had the foresight to prepare an escape would be pleading with him. He would be Noah, and they would be the people with the water rising around them, and like Noah, he would tell them all to go to the devil.

“Sir! Sir!”

Rankin frowned and looked past the horses’ heads. It was a woman, a young woman. Rankin slowed the team. A very attractive young woman, with long brown hair tumbling out from under a straw hat, and a shapely figure. She had a very worried look on her face. She had no baggage.

“Whoa!” Rankin pulled the horses to a stop. “Miss, can I help you?”

The young woman ran over. Very nice indeed. And desperate.

“Please, sir, I must get out of town! Please, can I ride with you?”

Rankin decided to alter the plan. Desperation, gratitude, dependence, put them all together and they could render a young woman very liberal in the defense of her virtues. There was a hotel in Nashville he had hoped to reach that night.

“Certainly, miss. Hop on.” He did not offer to help her climb up onto the high seat. She had to understand right off the nature of their relationship. “Giddyup!” Rankin snapped the reins. The horses moved out. “Oh, thank you, sir,” the young woman gushed. Rankin nodded his head. He did not speak to her. They rolled along, heading south to where Rankin would turn on the road to Nashville, now safely in Union hands. They rode in silence for five minutes. Rankin was aware of a rustling of skirts and he glanced over and caught a glimpse of the young woman’s ankle and calf, which he found enticing. “Down there, sir, is that the city wharf?” she asked. Rankin did not have to look in the direction she was pointing, he knew the answer. “Mm-hmm,” he said. “Yes it is, darlin.” “Very well,” she said, and her tone was quite different than it had been before. Lacking the desperation. “You can stop.” “Stop?” Rankin turned and smiled at her and found himself looking right into the barrel of a little pistol, aimed at his face. “Yes, stop. And get off.”

Bowater and Taylor staggered aft, Bowater hoping to hell that the boat was still there. The one intact boat, the big one they had been towing astern. As Bowater had gone looking for Taylor, the men were massing on the fantail and crowding aboard the launch. Last Bowater had seen, there was not much freeboard left, and more men climbing in.

The General Page rolled again, another five degrees. Bowater grabbed the rail to keep his footing and keep Taylor from falling.

They made their way down the starboard side, the high side, Bowater looking for stragglers, but the men of the General Page were well motivated to abandon ship, and he found only a few dead men along the way, victims of small arms or shell fragments or splinters.

He heard footsteps on the deck. Tanner and Tarbox, Burgoyne and Baxter, they came racing aft. “Let’s git the hell along!” Tarbox shouted, like a parent who has lost his patience. They grabbed up Taylor’s arms, half dragged him aft, and Bowater followed behind.

They handed Taylor into the boat and climbed in after, and then it was only Bowater on board. He put a leg over the side, stepped awkwardly into the stern sheets, and jammed himself into the place by the tiller.

“Shove off! Ship oars! Pull together!”

Awkwardly, their work hampered by the men overflowing the thwarts, the oarsmen pulled and the boat gathered way. They pulled hard, getting distance between themselves and the sinking boat.

“Rest on your oars!” Bowater called and the men stopped rowing and leaned on the looms. Bowater turned the boat broadside to the sinking paddle wheeler and the men looked back at the place from which they had come.

The General Joseph Page was heeling over at a forty-five-degree angle, water lapping around her deckhouse, shot full of holes. With a groan the walking beam let go and tumbled off the A-frame, smashed into the deckhouse, and hit the water with a great splash that set the boat rocking in the circular waves.

The Page sat more upright with that weight gone, and then began to settle. The water came up around her main deck, then her boiler deck, and then up to the hurricane deck. Bowater watched the Confederate ensign, tattered but still flying, as it was swallowed up by the river. At last only the one remaining chimney was left, and half of that disappeared into the river before it stopped.

“Reckon she’s on the bottom,” someone said, and that was met with a chorus of grunts.

Bowater looked upriver. The gunboats were coming down, and the rams had already chased downriver whatever ships of the River Defense Fleet were still floating. He wanted to make for the Arkansas side, try and get away overland, but one of the Yankee boats would catch them before they were halfway there. Besides, the overloaded launch would never make it.

“Oarsmen, pull together,” he said, and as the boat gathered way, he brought her head around to aim for the city wharf, the closest landing spot to them.

It was a ten-minute pull, long enough for Bowater to stare at the strange figure at the end of the wharf and deduce that it was a woman and she was waving to them. Wife of one of these river rats, he imagined. Sweetheart… hooker that one of them owes money to…

They got closer, and the only sound from the boatload of hopeless and despairing men was the creak of the oars and the occasional groan of the wounded, and Bowater could not help but think that the woman looked a damned lot like Wendy Atkins.

Absurd… And the resemblance only made his loneliness and depression more acute.

They pulled alongside the wharf, which was a few feet above the gunnel of the boat, and Bowater had to admit that the woman looked very much like Wendy, but he had not seen Wendy in half a year, and so clearly his memory was fading.

And then the woman said, “Samuel! Oh, Samuel!” and Bowater realized that it was Wendy Atkins, and then he did not know what to think. He stared at her. He said nothing. He feared for his sanity.

“Samuel, listen, I have a wagon, and I think it’s big enough to get all your men in, if we really crowd them in. I need help unloading it! Oh, Samuel, do hurry, we haven’t much time at all!”

Her tone carried so much authority that it snapped Bowater from his stupor. “Come on, you men. Up, up! Get that wagon emptied, we can still get out of here before the Yankees overrun us. Move! Do you want to rot in prison?” They could escape, they could do it with honor. They had not hauled down their flag.

The men moved. Exhausted, shocked, wounded, they pulled themselves from the boat, staggered over to the wagon, and began to unceremoniously dump Wilbur Rankin’s goods on the ground, all save for the small, heavy iron boxes, which they guessed were worth hanging on to.

Bowater supervised the operation, seeing the wounded men loaded in first, made comfortable on beds of silk cloth, and then the others, crammed in like hands of tobacco prized into a cask.

When the last man was on board, Bowater looked around. He could not see Wendy and he was suddenly terrified that she had not been there at all. But there she was, on the driver’s seat, reins in her hand. She smiled at him, that amazing smile.

He stepped quickly to the front of the wagon and climbed in beside her. She gave the reins a flick. “Giddyup!” she shouted and the horses strained and the wagon gathered way.

Bowater looked at her and she glanced at him quickly, smiled, and looked back at the road.

How… how… He did not know where to begin, so he didn’t. Too many questions. She handled the horses with a confidence he did not recall her possessing. Not the feigned confidence of her brash earlier self, but something real and solid.

Or perhaps he was just forgetting. It had been so long, and he was so tired. He closed his eyes.